The Challenge of Post Conflict Liberian National Police Leadership after UNMIL

Facing the challenge of a new age in post conflict Liberian National Police leadership relies on the 13 Cs of leadership. It is predicated upon “The 13 Cs of Leadership,” but I will elaborate on six for this occasion, which I wish to call on your critical thinking and philosophical assessment.

The first C is CURIOSITY AS A LEADER:
Specifically LNP leadership: This is very significant because it promotes an ongoing intellectual growth. As Black African people, specifically Liberian people, we must always be intolerant of ignorance, but understanding of illiteracy. That some of our people, unable to go to school, sometimes the faults are not of their own doing, were and are more intelligent than some of our college professors and Ph.Ds and other eulogical practitioners. It is never too late or old to learn, and learning is not a new or young thing. These people must not be left behind in our quest for advancement. With your capable leadership through LNP, we can take care of our own after UNMIL.

The Second C: CREATIVITY:
As LNP leaders, you have to be creative, innovative, with the power to manifest something new that will attract your followers in generating a collective team-players mentality. Creativity leads to positive change agents who always strive to make sense out of senseless situations of popular interest – to make the best out of the worst situation.

The Third C: COMMUNICATION:
An excellent grasp of language, with specific emphasis on Police Language, is virtually essential for a leader to lead. As LNP leaders, we must be able to communicate and easily articulate ideas and persuasively discuss concepts with others. Leaders have a willingness and ultimate desire to and generously share helpful, uplifting information, ideas, and knowledge. Communication is Key to constant connection and social networking.

The Fourth C: CHARACTER:
This addresses the inner, spiritual beauty of a leader. Character refers to a person’s, specifically a leader’s, sense of morality, and the moral and cultural values relevant to your belief systems, or what you relatively consider right or wrong.

The Fifth C: CONVICTION:
To have high ideas is a necessary qualitative condition for leadership. Leaders demonstrate conviction to ideas, values, and social norms that develop personal integrity, support society, and uplift the community at large. This must be a post-conflict Liberian National Police pledge moving forward – 15 years into the 21st Century to 2017 and beyond.

The Six C: COURAGE:
Failure is not a blow to a man’s ambitious march to his anticipated goal, but rather a test of his determination and optimism….COURAGE…….This means being committed to high ideas, even when outvoted by a majority, even when they say ‘you failed us.’ Failure is not a blow to man’s ambitious march to his anticipated goal, but rather a test of his determination and optimism; because, in the context of LNP Leadership, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in times of comfort or convenience, but where he stands in times of difficulty and controversies.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) In essence, I would like to critically elucidate a simple synopsis of a guiding principle for a 21st Century post 911 and post conflict LNP Respect Chart:
I. As a 21st Century post 911 and post conflict LNP, our will is to serve humanity.
II. We will always conduct ourselves in a professional manner and maintain a professional surrounding and an enabling environment.
III. We will go beyond the normal to provide compassionate and family services to each other and our first customers (the people of Liberia and our partners in progress).
IV. We will treat each other and our customers with respect, dignity, compassion, and a sense of oneness in humanity, land of nativity, and nationalism.
V. We are the ones to teach others that act on one term of a shared commitment – each one teaches one. One loss of life of LNP is one too many.
VI. We will work together and share information and ideas through social networking and collective consciousness of Law Enforcement – Criminal Justice – with Police Science by undoing our miss-education of the past; and
VII. We will collectively remain open and consider all suggestions and ideas classified and de-classified that help our unified movement as LNP. Yet, we will remain vigilant and unambiguous of our alertness in an effort to avoid public panic and paranoia. Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the mind, the spirit, the soul, the community, and the world if appropriately utilized. For knowledge is power and the only cause of fear is ignorance. ”
I have recently developed and presented the Law Enforcement-Criminal Justice-Police Science Curriculum to Cuttington University’s Faculty Senate, Academic Standing Committee, and it was accepted and approved to be taught at the institution. This will commence at the main campus in Suakoko with AA and BA degrees, and at the Junior College in Kakata with an AA degree, with an anticipated projection at the Cuttington University Graduate School with MA/Ph.D in Law Enforcement-Criminal Justice-Police Science.

The Liberia National Police was established in accordance with section 180 of chapter 13, sub chapter “A” of the Executive Law in the Liberian Code of Law Volume 11 of 1955 within the department of Justice and reversed under Section 22.70 of the same Executive Law of June 12, 1955.
Throughout the decades the LNP has educated its practitioners with certifications and qualifications. Based upon this analysis, it becomes imperative to articulate that contemporary perspectives of policing can be seen as law in action, as opposed to black letter law as printed. It is legal realism giving life to laws that are at once substance, procedural, and restorative, concerned with legality, but also with due process, and doing justice. In this way, policing in the context of the contemporary, and a 21st Century post conflict and post Ebola Liberian National Police, gives life to human rights.
Victor Hugo told us many decades ago that “There is nothing more powerful in the entire world than an idea whose time has come.” I say as a follow up that “There is no vision that is greater than the fruition of a creative mind.”
President of Tanzania Dr. Julius Nyerere articulated: “We are the custodians of the cultures of our ancestors, mothers and fathers. We are the perpetrators of the cultures of our children….we have no right to leave behind a culture that is less filtered than the ones our parents left to us.” The LNP leadership of post conflict Liberia must be cognizant of the fact that freedom only takes a free people to give it up. For in order to produce the future, you have to create the future. Because by truth Liberia will rise in peace again; in love, Liberia will expand with dignity again; and with redemption, atonement, and reconciliation, Liberia will never fall again.

With God there are only possibilities.
Honorable Director General of the Liberia National Police, to my fine and humanitarian government officials, and our UNMIL friends, I thank you ever so much for your time with us, and I appreciate all of your humanitarian safety and security obligations to our people and nation.
I wish to respectfully submit to you my fellow LNP practitioners our risky obligations as police officers must be guided by what Dr. King told us many years ago that “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in times of comfort or convenience, but where he stands in times of difficulty and controversy.”
I therefore wish to express to you fellow LNPs – Honorable Director General, that the faintest whisper of a heart that feels alone and abandoned comes before the heart of a loving father who will go to any length to comfort his children. Mr. Director General, the LNP is prepared and ready to comfort the nation after UNMIL. When all conscious protective mechanisms are in place, and I am optimistic that through you it will and must be done, for our domestic safety and security after UNMIL and beyond, we must take a stand against sins committed by ourselves in the past.

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